Author
Topic: Itís Official: Elk is New World Record (Read 5976 times)

I received this in email, so I don't know if it's legitimate or not. If it is, it's a heck of a bull!

Itís Official: Elk is New World Record

The Boone and Crockett Club has confirmed that a Utah bull taken by a hunter on public land in 2008 is indeed a new world record.

A special judges panel determined a final score of 478-5/8 B&C nontypical points, an incredible 93-plus inches above the Boone and Crockett minimum score of 385 for a nontypical American elk, and more than 13 inches larger than the previous worldís record.

It is the only elk on record with a gross score approaching the 500-inch mark, at 499-3/8. Official data dates back to 1830.

The giant bull has nine points on the left antler and 14 points on the right. The larger antler has a base circumference topping nine inches.

The Boone and Crockett scoring system rewards antler size and symmetry, but also recognizes imperfections with nontypical categories for most antlered game. The bullís final score of 478 5/8 inches includes an amazing 140 inches of abnormal points.

Denny Austad of Ammon, Idaho, killed the bull in the Monroe Mountain District in south-central Utah. He was hunting with a self-designed rifle and killed the bull on Sept. 30, 2008. He hunted for 13 days before connecting with the trophy, dubbed the Spider Bull for its unique antler configuration.

The previous world record for nontypical American elk was 465 2/8 points. That bull was found dead, frozen in Upper Arrow Lake, B.C., in 1994 and was entered into Boone and Crockett Club records by the provincial Ministry of Environment on behalf of the citizens of British Columbia.

For hunter-taken nontypical American elk, the previous top bull scored 450 6/8 B&C points, taken in 1998 in Apache County, Ariz., by Alan Hamberlin.

The Boone and Crockett Club also keeps records for Rooseveltís and Tule elk. Worldís records for these categories are substantially smaller than those for American elk.

Eldon Buckner, chairman of the clubís Records of North American Big Game committee, credited the tremendous management of habitat and wildlife by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and the Fishlake National Forest.

ďUtahís conservation professionals really deserve a pat on the back, as do the citizens of Utah for their support of their stateís wildlife programs,Ē says Buckner.

Across North America, modern conservation practices are allowing game populations to flourish, complete with an abundance of balanced age-class and mature, trophy animals. Over the past 30 years, qualifying Boone and Crockett records book entries for American elk have increased 193 percent from a total of 14 in 1977 to 41 in 2007.

Across all categories of native North American big game, the overall trend is even higher with 344 qualifiers in 1977 up to 1,151 in 2007 a 234-percent increase.

To you gutless cowards and scumbags, who are trying to lie and rewrite history. To those out to commit genocide on the Southern people with your destruction of Confederate monuments and your attacks on Southern heritage and pride. Be happy for now. Because someday when that civil war you wanted starts. I will find you. And I will kill you.